Life Circles: A Self-help Book to Improve Your Relationships, Marriage, and Life

By Robert O. Lewis and Jeanne S. Vinson

You need this book if any of these things are true:
- You are having problems in your life you can't seem to solve.
- You have chosen to live with someone and are conflicted by the lack of commitment.
- You are planning to get married and are not sure if it is the right thing or the right time.
- Your marriage has lost its luster and you would like to get it back on track.
- Your children are wrecking your marriage--what do you do?
- Your marriage has reached a crisis and divorce seems the only answer.
- You are divorced and feel the guilt and loneliness of separation and loss of friends.
- You are empty nesters, getting gray, and wondering what to do next.
- You worry about the legacy you will leave your children.

This book offers immediate help for all these situations. The solution focuses on the rebalancing of the forces that exist in our lives and how we spend our time. Your Life Circles reveal what you should change to bring balance and harmony into your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: May 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532685903

Robert O. Lewis

Robert O. Lewis brings his experience and beliefs to fruition in this book that he began twenty years ago and put down, only to recently become inspired to complete it. He is a published author of numerous technical papers, two textbooks, and has taught more than sixty courses for three universities and numerous seminars. He was made a technical fellow by the Boeing Company before he retired to do consulting.

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Life Circles

A Self-help Book to Improve Your Relationships, Marriage, and Life

Robert O. Lewis

foreword by Jeanne Vinson

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LIFE CIRCLES

A Self-help Book to Improve Your Relationships, Marriage, and Life

Copyright © 2019 Robert O. Lewis. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Resource Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-8588-0

hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-8589-7

ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-8590-3

Scriptures taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1: Finding Out Where You Are

Chapter 2: Is Your Job Running Your Life?

Chapter 3: I Have A Lot To Say To Young People

Chapter 4: More Information on Your Life Circles

Chapter 5: Starting Out in a Career and Finding a Mate

Chapter 6: Coping With Young Children

Chapter 7: Mid-Life Couples With Children

Chapter 8: Empty Nesters

Chapter 9: Retirement And Your Legacy

Chapter 10: Putting on the Whole Armor of God

Chapter 11: Time to Re-examine Your Life Circles and Re-Balance Your Life

Bibliography

Dedicated to Deborah and Lyla

Foreword

When I first read Life Circles, I was impressed with the simplicity of Lewis’s approach to helping people analyze their human relationships with each other and God with strong hints on what to do to improve their lives and especially their marriages. In my practice as Licensed Professional Counselor, but more importantly as a Christian Counselor, I find people that have no idea how to get started in evaluating their own situations or trying to improve their relationships. Read deeply as Lewis describes Faith, Family and Friends, in that order. Life Circles addresses people of all ages and situations with pragmatic ideas on how to create balance by improving their lives and the lives of those around them. His beautifully written, easy to read, personal experiences woven throughout the book provide a stage on which you can find yourself and see how his mistakes, as well as accomplishments, will encourage everyone who finds their life in a mess. I encourage you to take Life Circles to heart. It can help you weather the hard times life throws at us all from time to time.

Jeanne Vinson MS. LPC, Christian Counselor

Preface

I stopped and started this book several times over the past twenty years and now find myself in a position where I have learned a lot more about myself in the interim based on events that I never thought I would experience. Some were great and some were quite painful, but I count all these things as blessings because they have made me a more loving, understanding, and faithful person. Regardless of your spirituality, I believe that you must involve God through prayer to guide you in making the important decisions you and your family face every day and in every way.

I want everyone who reads this book to picture themselves in some of the situations I describe. Some are anecdotal and funny while some are sad, and several are stories told me by others who wanted to contribute to this book to help others who find themselves in similar situations. I mention them here to let you know you are not alone. Millions of people are where you are in your life. Some will move forward, and some will slide back. Some will never improve their situations, and some will find a way to achieve better balance and become much more positive and happier people. This book will help you find your way and put you in a position to better control the forces that affect your life.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank my daughters Lyla and Deborah who encouraged me to finish writing this book. They are both my strength and inspiration.

I wish to thank several people who read early drafts and made suggestions and contributions: Emily, David, and Jeanne, as well as others who shared their stories with me and shall remain nameless.

My sister Judy who did the first complete and thorough edit for me.

My good friend Lynne who did the final editing and formatting.

I am very grateful to you all.

Introduction

This is a self-help book that is targeted at young adults, married couples, and divorcees of all age groups who have a nagging feeling that something vital is missing in their lives or, in worst case, are seeking help uncovering the causes before their lives completely unravel. The book makes the readers take an introspective look at their lives by making them do some self-evaluations at the beginning of the book and again at the end. It offers just-in-time guidance in cases where the reader has a divorce or remarriage pending to help them avoid another mistake. It is also helpful in repairing neglected marriages and those challenged by combined families when divorcees remarry. The book exposes life forces that many people do not realize exist or chose to ignore, and it helps you bring your life and that of your family under the protection of God and the Holy Spirit. It focuses on and helps you rebalance your main four Life Circles and helps you have enough time for all the good things in life you need. The book includes vignettes of the author’s life and shared stories both good and bad by others whose lives have been shared with him to help the readers evaluate their own situations and decision making.

One of the shocking statistics uncovered in writing this book is how many older empty nesters are divorcing. This group is rising significantly just when they should be more able financially to enjoy some of the finer things in life together. This should be the time to travel and doing all the things you postponed for years waiting for the kids to leave. I have some sage advice for this group. Start doing your bucket list before it is too late.

The best news comes in the last two chapters on how you can improve your life and that of your spouse and children by fully embracing the rewards God has provided for us here on earth and in the hereafter. I encourage you not to be a lukewarm participant in your walk with God. Become a strong believer and willing participant, and you will be rewarded forever.

1

Finding Out Where You Are

Finding out where you are tells you a lot about yourself. The challenge of this chapter is to help you discover where you are in the relationships you have with the main elements and forces in your life. Most of us can readily identify four major components of our daily lives: Family, Friends, Work, and Self. We are going to be using circles I call Life Circles to define these major components in terms of their importance to us and how much time you spend in each circle. If you spend about the same amount of your life with two of those components, then those two circles are the same size.

It is very helpful if you begin this analysis of yourself with a pen or pencil and draw the circles the size you believe they are in relationship to each other. You may want to finish reading the chapter first and then come back to make several attempts before doing the final ones you will need to save, perhaps folded up in the book.

Let’s start with Work and Family circles. Most people work 8 to 10 hours per day including commuting time, so a bit over one-third of our Monday through Friday time is spent at work. This can be considered the baseline for the rest of the circles we are going to draw. Our job is important, especially if we are the sole breadwinner of the family, so try to estimate what size your Family circle is compared to your Work circle. You can allow for time on the weekends with family, so those two circles should be about the same size. Sleep time is when you are in bed and bathing, etc. and is deducted from the total hours but not factored into this exercise. Now go ahead and draw your Work and Family circles. These are just examples shown in Figure 1 below.

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Figure 1. Example Life Circles

Now let’s take a few minutes to see where all the time in one week goes: There are 168 hours in a week and we already know we spend at least 45 hours working and in transit and in some places, it takes a lot longer. In this book, we’ll use 45 hours as the Work baseline. Use the pen and paper to collect your actuals. You need to record them for analysis later. We sleep an average of 8 hours x 7 days, which takes another 56 hours away from available time to do other things and we need more time for dressing, bathing, and all those things that take off another 7 hours a week at least.

Thus, most families are left with about 60 hours, and if we take half those hours for Family time at 30 hours including meals, that leaves just 30 hours (less than 5 hours a day) for us to do all the other things we may want or need to do, or if you work longer hours, you will have even less than 30 available hours a week.

One extremely important need to do thing is weekly worship, which for Christians is going to church, and it is my family’s habit to join with others for the noon meal every Sunday. When we got married, my wife informed me that we will always go out for lunch after church and that tradition continues to this day. It is a nice reason to dine with friends and share our week with them. Our children also picked up the habit and do this, too, on most Sundays. It’s all about fellowship and keeping friendships energized in a totally relaxed atmosphere.

Managing all the other things we want or need to do has a severe physical limitation. If you have a couple of children, they have a lot of demands on these 30 hours, some of which are in the Family circle, and some are not. Sometimes when the breadwinner comes home, things are in chaos because children often have competing places the parents are required to take them, and schedule conflicts mess up routines and mealtimes together. Balancing home life today can be a tedious business.

Forward planning